Page 59 of Maneater

“Is it finished, Alf?” I heard Gadriel’s voice somewhere ahead.

The hood still obscured my vision, and Sir Karst and Sir Regis kept a firm grip on my arms until we came to a stop. We’d already passed through two corridors and descended a staircase, but I’d lost track of the rest as we turned through more winding halls.

“Yes, Your Highness,” a deep voice answered. “The pieces you’ve requested are ready, the ones I cut and polished yesterday. They’re in the chest, awaiting the final materials.”

“Here,” Gadriel said, handing something over.

There was a quiet grunt, the sound of shifting fabric, then the clatter of metal being set into place. A brief pause followed.

“All done, Your Highness,” the voice said at last. “They’re complete.”

“Leave us, Alf. Do not return until morning.”

“As you wish, Highness.”

I heard a heavy pair of footsteps lumber away and then silence closed in around us.

But a latch gave way to a soft click, and something creaked open on worn hinges.

Following it, the sound of metal came, faintly clinking, like chains or iron fittings brushing together.

At first, I didn’t understand, but it didn’t take long for fear to follow.

What in the gods’ names had Gadriel commissioned?

“Hold her still,” Gadriel commanded.

The grip on my arms tightened suddenly, and legs hooked around my ankles, fixing me in place. I cried out and bucked hard against them, but their grasp didn’t budge.

“Get off of me!” I snapped as someone began to unfasten my cloak. I thrashed, twisting my torso, struggling with everything I had. “Don’t touch me!”

But Gadriel’s hand found my waist, and I felt him begin to fasten something around it.

It was heavy and solid, the sensation familiar.

No, it can’t be. As it settled into place, the pressure deepened.

My chest tightened. My thoughts slowed. Whatever he had placed on me seemed to multiply its weight by the second.

It wasn’t just sitting on my waist, it was pressing into me, dragging me down.

I nearly collapsed. My legs weakened, and I was sure I would’ve fallen if the knights hadn’t been holding me up. Then Gadriel’s hand moved again, and I felt a soft tick, like a lock clicking into place.

“There,” he said, satisfied. “It’s fastened.”

My body went slack, and my head grew so heavy it lolled forward. But Gadriel pulled the cloak from my head, and light filtered slowly into my vision. I couldn’t lift my neck, but my eyes found the chain fastened around my waist.

If I’d had the strength to laugh, I might have.

Gadriel was as depraved as he was predictable.

The chain at my waist was crafted in the same style as my old consort chain, only this one wasn’t gold.

It gleamed dark, made of iron. A tassel hung from one of the rungs, but it wasn’t crimson, and it wasn’t silk.

It was metal, woven from hundreds of tiny interlocking rings.

They clinked softly as they brushed together, and from the center of the tassel hung a pronged stone, set into a black-glimmering pendant.

A faceted piece of the stone.

If I had felt even the faintest flicker of my Wrath before, it was gone now.

All that remained was the sensation of the walls pressing in around me.

Somewhere deep in my mind, I saw something.

Maybe it was the last shred of my divinity, a final cry for help, or a warning of what was to come, but I saw the branches of my ossiraen beginning to wither, turning dry and brittle.

Whatever this artefact was, it was all wrong.

It felt as though the world had been turned inside out, day made night, fire turned to ice.

“It’s perfect,” Gadriel uttered, his eyes lingering on the chain. “Now release her.”

At once, the knights freed their hold on my arms and ankles, and I dropped.

But Gadriel was already there, catching me before I hit the floor.

My body hung limp as he cradled me under the shoulders, holding me upright.

With a slight pull, he drew me back to look at me, though my eyes were half-lidded, too heavy to stay open.

Lifting me into his arms, he settled my head against his neck, my legs dangling loosely over his other arm.

“There’s something else I want to show you,” Gadriel whispered. “But not until morning.”

The prince of Hyrall began walking, retracing the path we’d taken to get here. Sir Karst and Sir Regis soon took the lead, walking ahead of us. All the while, Gadriel whispered softly in my ear, words woven from delusion and imagined triumphs. I could barely process them. I wasn’t sure I wanted to.

He carried me back to his quarters, and when we arrived, the drawing room was different. A bed now stood at the center of the space, four-postered and draped with sheer silk curtains, as though it had always belonged there.

Gadriel laid me down gently and pulled the sheets over me, as if tending to something fragile. But it wasn’t with kindness. It felt like possession disguised as care. And it unsettled me more than if he’d dropped me on the floor.

I would get out of this. I had before, and I would again. No matter what Gadriel planned, no matter how tightly he thought he held me, I would find my way back to Torhiel.

“Goodnight, Odessa,” Gadriel said quietly, pausing at the doorway. “Tomorrow, everything begins. My reign, our glory. You’ll never slip from my grasp again.”

Then Gadriel turned and left, locking the door behind him.

A presence tugged at me, pulling me from whatever fog of sleep and numbness I’d sunk into.

I could barely manage to open my eyes. The chain around my waist was still there, just as heavy as it had been the night before.

But something roused in me. A feeling I recognized.

There was a flicker of divinity, a trace of Vengeance.

It was faint, but I knew it. It called to me.

I was drawn to it instinctively, like the way a flower leans toward the sun, or a fish finds the pull of current.

It felt like Raithe .

“Raithe?” I managed to rasp, my heart catching in my chest.

“I was wondering when you’d wake,” a deep voice answered. But the moment the words reached my ears, I knew it wasn’t Raithe.

I tried to lift my head, to open my eyes, but everything felt far away. My body was heavy and my limbs felt barely my own. It took everything I had just to mutter, “Why are you here, Hadeon?”

“Unpleasant, isn’t it?” he replied, his voice drifting through the room. “Perhaps you’ll survive long enough to adjust to it.”

The stone’s weight at my waist lightened, just enough for me to force my eyes open.

In the pale dawn light, I saw him. Hadeon stood beside the bed, cradling the black pendant at my waist in his hand, his brow creased in thought.

And for a moment, just briefly, he looked beautiful again.

His skin was pale as porcelain, his copper hair was smooth as silk.

And his eyes were so golden they made me ache.

That color brought everything back, memories of Raithe, of what I’d lost. I had to look away before I started to shudder.

“Where is he?” I asked.

“I expected your first question to be why I did it,” Hadeon said, dismissing me, turning the stone over in his hand. “If you had embraced your godhood long ago, I doubt you’d be in this position now.”

I said nothing while I stared at him, disdain plain in my eyes.

He held the pendant up slightly. “A rarity,” he murmured. “A stone capable of suppressing a god’s power. In all my centuries, I’ve only encountered one other like it. And it makes me wonder, perhaps something greater than the gods must be at work to forge such a thing.”

“A form of balance,” Hadeon added. “To keep the scales from tipping too far.”

Hadeon released the pendant, letting it fall back against me as if it meant nothing at all. “But as you’re beginning to understand, even a relic designed to bind a god has its limits. Strength like ours only bends for so long.”

The moment Hadeon’s hand left the pendant, the weight came rushing back. Only then did I understand just how effortlessly he had carried it.

“The mortal prince, I’ve only heard Vengeance rise like that a handful of times. So pure, so absolute. It’s rare to witness something that unbridled.” He paused. “I couldn’t tear my eyes from it.”

But I couldn’t follow Hadeon’s words anymore. The weight from the pendant was pressing in on all sides now, and it was the only thing I could think about.

“Hadeon,” I managed to say. “Just a moment longer.”

Understanding flickered in the demigod’s eyes, and an amused smile followed.

“It’s been ages since I felt anything like this,” he murmured, lowering himself beside me. He reached for my waist, and the moment his hand touched the pendant, the weight lifted as if it were nothing more than air in his grasp.

“When I heard that prayer,” Hadeon continued, voice quieter now, “I had no idea it came from the prince of the mortal realm. But when I arrived, he laid himself bare, his darkest thoughts, his quietest hungers. I learned the truths hidden in his wretched soul. And the bargains he offered, even Vengeance would have been tempted to strike.”

“But you accepted the bargain,” I countered, jaw tight. “Not Vengeance. And for what?”

“For power,” Hadeon answered, “if the prince fulfills what he has promised. In time, you’ll understand that nothing in this world is simply given. Mortal or divine, power belongs to those who claim it. And I’ll do whatever I must to claim what’s mine.”

“So will I.” My voice was weaker than I wanted.

Hadeon gave me a faint smirk. “What the prince offered to me was no ordinary bargain, Odessa. As a matter of fact, it was worth a thousand in its weight. This binding is not something that ends after one act, or ten, or even a hundred. It will feed my ossiraen with every thread of its unraveling. And as it deepens, so does my power. The truth is, the demigods who endure are the ones willing to gamble everything. Because in the end, they understand that the greatest power demands the greatest cost.”

The smile suddenly faded from his lips. “This trial will not spare you, Odessa. I know what the prince intends to do, and he will break you. Should you rise again, it won’t be as who you once were.

” His tone chilled to ice. “But understand this, you are here because you failed. You faltered where a god would not. Your weakness opened a path that gods wait lifetimes to find, and I made use of what you were unable to. The bargain that followed is one I may never see again in this age or the next. And for that, I owe you thanks. ”

Before I could answer, Hadeon shifted, his fingers slipping from the pendant.

His body began to dissolve into shadow, the darkness gathering around him until it swallowed him completely.

I watched his silhouette fade, slipping into the folds of the curtains of my bed.

Within moments, he was gone. But even then, I could feel him.

A faint hum of his power lingered, telling me he had not truly left.

Hadeon’s voice settled into my thoughts like smoke:

Remain vigilant, halfling. Today marks the beginning of my due.